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Friday, 24 February 2012

Our blog site is better named than we
thought. We are in illustrious company, or should that be infamous? Arresting
Prose was the title of an article in The Observer newspaper in 2004
relating to Psalms for People under
Pressure written by Jonathan Aitken, the Conservative British MP, while
imprisoned for perjury. Described as
an oddly moving book and a commendable advertisement for poetry and possibly
Christianity, the author likened Aitken’s writings to that of Oscar Wilde after
his prison experiences in The Ballad of
Reading Gaol.

The article drew comparisons with Joe
Orton, a 1960s English playwright famous for his black comedy; Ken Kesey,
author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
nest; Tom Paine (1737-1809) one of the Founding Fathers of the United
States who wrote Rights of Man and Age of Reason; and Ben Jonson, a
contemporary of Shakespeare, whose writings were numerous. All of these people
had been in gaol sometimes because, like Aitken, they had broken the law, but more
often because they were political activists or didn’t fit the social norms of
the time.

Either way their experiences deepened their
writing. Literature and solitude, it seems, go together and painful personal
experiences are often inspirational. It is hoped that those of us who are
members of the Mairangi Writers and contributors to this blog will not have to
go to such lengths to be recognised as authors with something to say.

I would prefer another kind of
inspiration: the kind that Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning shared, love.
Forbidden to marry by her father, Elizabeth and Robert exchanged a total of 573
letters, the first of which begins, "I
love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett ..."

Through this exchange of letters discussing
other writers, sharing their work and having philosophical debates, they fell
in love. Despite her chronic ill-health, strict Victorian upbringing and
increasing age (late 30s) she and Robert married in secret and fled the
country. She was disinherited and her father never spoke to her again.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (and
the enlightened project leaders at Wellesley College and Baylor University in
Waco, Texas) these letters have been digitised and are available online for all
to read – ‘just as they were written – with creased paper, fading ink, quill
pen cross outs and even the envelopes the two poets used.’

Friday, 17 February 2012

Bookstores
and publishers are struggling to sell enough books to stay in business. But
what if the product was the story?

If
you simplify the relationship between writer and reader to its most basic
level, it’s storyteller and listener. Conveying information or entertainment
from one person to another has been going on for millennia, starting with the
spoken word round a flickering fire. Every village had its own entertainers,
and the most skilled storytellers attracted more listeners as word was passed
around. “Ere, have you heard old William
tell that tale of the king and his daughter? It’s a real good ‘un.”

Skip
forward a few centuries. Storytelling has been mechanised into books, and is in
the hands of grey-faced accountants who decide which stories will be sold to
the people. Costs are high so only a handful of stories are chosen, and that’s
all the people have to choose from. Authors are on one side of a high wall,
built by publishers, struggling to get over to the readers who are on the other
side clamouring for new stories.

Skip
forward another decade. Storytellers and their readers have pushed aside the grey-faced
accountants and are reconnecting at last. The high wall lies in shattered
fragments. Any author can be published, and any reader can find them. The most
skilled writers gather a following and reach a wide audience as word is passed
around. “Oh, you have to get William’s latest onto your Kindle – it’s
brilliant!”

We
are in an exciting new age with the most astonishing potential for writers and
readers to connect. I can’t wait to see what can be achieved.

Do
you think bookstores can adapt and survive? Is their expertise still relevant?
What would you like to happen?

“It’s amazing how times change –
where once writers were considered to be eccentric persons who locked
themselves away in attics – nowadays we are expected to be upfront and up to
date."

And he’s right. Today we need to
be at least; computer experts, marketing managers and able to speak well in
public. Eccentric may still apply – but, hopefully, we cover it well.

Now and then I
ask myself why, when I could be slipping into retirement with my feet up,
dozing in a rocking chair on the old porch, puffing on my clay pipe and
fighting off the dog’s fleas – am I locked away in my little study with my
computer, learning the maniacal machinations of ever new software packages, emails,
attachments, blogs and websites, etc. etc. etc. And why?

Because I love
stories, and the words that paint them in someone else’s head.

So did Leo Rosten –

‘We love by
words - love, truth, God.

We fight for words – freedom, country,
fame.

We die for words – liberty, glory,
honour.’

We are in good company.

Two hundred
years ago, on the 7th February 1812 Charles Dickens was born in
Portsmouth, England and through all trials and tribulations in his personal
life still managed to leave us his fabulous legacy of classic works. And
Charles Dickens had to learn shorthand for his work as a journalist and probably
burnt many a midnight candle to get his manuscripts to print and out to the
people!

It’s my privilege to introduce a new
blog page under the name of Arresting Prose, read that how you will! Arresting
Prose represents the thirteen members of Mairangi Writers who meet on the
North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand.

As you will discover, our members
have chosen aliases representing the sycophants of a somewhat doubtful gang of
mobsters, hence the Arresting Prose title.

Mairangi Writers as a support for actively writing locals, was formed 30
years ago. We meet fortnightly and each is expected to read several pages of
work for pretty much every meeting. We hope that 15 minutes per person of
feed-back will not only help the writer but encourage him/her to pursue their
publishing goal. As a result, over 40 publications have seen the light of day
since the Group first got together.

Apart from a clever writer of
humorous verse, (and short stories) we also have several closet poets but most
are working their way through novels or short stories.

Speaking for myself, I’m presently
re-writing six short stories dealing with human frailties and the often highly
charged interaction between families, friends, business associates and/or
siblings. My six stories explore the humour and temper of a middle-aged brother
and sister who because of circumstances are forced to live more or less in the
same house. While one is constantly upsetting the apple-cart, the other is
doing her best to normalise his behaviour in an attempt restore their standing
with the neighbours. I’m getting a lot of fun out of this and would love one
day to have them accepted as a radio sequence.

Welcome to our blog.

Pam Laird

PS from the Officer in Charge

We hope you will enjoy reading
our weekly posts. They will be as varied as our members, some informative, some
funny, but all entertaining, as we share thoughts and insights about today’s
publishing world.